microsoft: Last News

EA CEO Andrew Wilson has shared that Call Of Duty becoming an Xbox-exclusive series would be a “tremendous opportunity” for EA’s Battlefield series.As Microsoft‘s acquisition of Activision Blizzard continues, the purchase has come under scrutiny over the possibility of Microsoft potentially making Call Of Duty an Xbox-exclusive. While Microsoft says it will continue to launch Call Of Duty on PlayStation, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has slammed Microsoft’s three-year offer as “inadequate on many levels.” Speaking at last week’s Communacopia + Technology conference (via Gamespot), Wilson addressed the speculation surrounding Call Of Duty‘s future.“In a world where there may be questions over the future of Call Of Duty and what platforms that might be on or might not be on, being platform agnostic and completely cross-platform with Battlefield, I think is a tremendous opportunity,” reflected Wilson.However, Wilson also acknowledged that EA’s latest Battlefield releases haven’t lived up to players’ expectations. “I don’t think we delivered in the last two iterations of that in the way that we should have,” said Wilson.

Microsoft has confirmed that it has “no plans” to bring online multiplayer to GoldenEye 007 on Xbox, although the feature has been confirmed for Nintendo Switch versions.Yesterday (September 13), Rare and Nintendo announced the return of GoldenEye 007, a fan-favourite shooter from the Nintendo 64 that will be making its way to Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles.While Nintendo has advertised the port as having online play, allowing players to compete with their friends over the internet, the same feature will not be available on Xbox versions.In a statement, Microsoft confirmed that online play will not be a part of GoldenEye 007 on Xbox.“Xbox is excited to bring GoldenEye 007 to Xbox Game Pass for the very first time – a faithful recreation of a much-loved and iconic title,” reads the statement. “While there are no plans to include online multiplayer as part of GoldenEye 007 on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox is focused on bringing this title to players in the way they fondly remember, including local multiplayer mode, allowing up to four players to take to the couch in a battle of wits and skill.”Elsewhere, Rare has confirmed that the Xbox version will include “achievements, 4K resolution and a smoother framerate – even in split-screen local multiplayer!”More Nintendo 64 games are on the way!Pokémon Stadium, Mario Party, Pilotwings 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Excitebike 64, & more will be gradually added to the Nintendo 64 library on #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack.

Microsoft‘s ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard may “harm rivals” and “damage competition.”In a statement released today (via VGC), the CMA said that it is “concerned that if Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard it could harm rivals, including recent and future entrants into gaming, by refusing them access to Activision Blizzard games or providing access on much worse terms.”The report added that the CMA has “received evidence about the potential impact of combining Activision Blizzard with Microsoft’s broader ecosystem,” which it believes could be used to “damage competition” in console, cloud and PC markets.Due to this, the CMA is considering “an in-depth Phase 2 investigation,” following on from the probe it launched in July.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th anniversary update is adding a number of vehicles and enhancements later this year.Announced yesterday (August 25), the anniversary update is set to drop on November 11. It will add helicopters and gliders, the “most requested enhancements” from the game’s community, new airplanes and six historically significant aircraft.The six historical aircraft include the “903 Wright Flyer, the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny from 1915, the beautiful Grumman G-21 A Goose, and the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules, also known as the Spruce Goose,” there will also be true-to-life airliner the Airbus A-310.That means the Wright Brothers plane, which had the first sustained flight from a manned heavier-than-air powered aircraft, will be in Microsoft Flight Simulator.Check out the trailer for the update below.When the anniversary update takes flight on November 11, the game will have 12 new aircraft, 12 heliports, 12 glider airports, six classic commercial airports and 20 historic franchise missions.The Microsoft Flight Simulator update will also be free, and included with Xbox Game Pass at launch. This update will thus be joining the Top Gun: Maverick expansion, which adds a number of jet planes from this year’s Tom Cruise film.Elsewhere, Microsoft has confirmed that it will not be raising the price of the Xbox Series X|S at this time, after Sony abruptly did so for the PS5 this week. “We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options.

Xbox‘s principal product manager Harrison Hoffman has said that streaming games on a TV should be just as easy as watching a Netflix film.During a discussion with GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom 2022 yesterday (August 24), Hoffman spoke about Xbox’s recent partnership with Samsung which will bring Xbox Game Pass to its Smart TVs without the need for a console.The product manager explained that while bringing Microsoft‘s games to mobile devices is still a focal point for the company, putting emphasis on the fact that cloud gaming is “a core part of our long-term gaming strategy,” TV is just as important.“Different people have different types of behaviour, certain games lend themselves to quick gaming sessions or gaming on a smaller screen,” Hoffman explained.“But one of the reasons I’m particularly excited about the TV app is that our games really shine on the big screen, they’re made for the big screen, so this seems like such a logical next step for us.”Hoffman added that he thinks streaming and playing games through a TV should be just as simple as watching a film through a streaming service.“People have really gotten used to streaming their movies and TV through the Netflix app or Disney+ app. We want to make it as easy for people to stream a game as it is to stream a movie from Netflix.

Sony has stated that it had no involvement in getting Death Strandingon PC Game Pass.Despite Sony owning the intellectual property of Death Stranding, the company was not involved in the licensing deal with Microsoft for its PC Game Pass service.In Sony’s statement, a spokesperson outlined the company’s relationship with the deal, stating that “matters relating to the PC release of Death Stranding are managed by Kojima Productions and 505 Games. [Sony] has no involvement in this promotion” (via Push Square).The version of Death Stranding coming to PC Game Pass is not the Director’s Cut which released on PC in March of this year, with the service only receiving the base gamewhich was first released on PC in 2020.As Sony owns the intellectual property for the game, it is currently a console-exclusive for the PlayStation group of platforms.Death Stranding coming to PC Game Pass was teased via some cryptic tweets from the official Game Pass Twitter account before being confirmed by the same account earlier in the week.

1989 hit “Rhythm Nation” is too much for some laptops to handle. Microsoft’s principal software engineer Raymond Chen revealed on his blog Tuesday that the song has the same frequency as some older model laptops’ hard drives — called a resonate frequency, which is the natural frequency of an object. And, unfortunately, it can cause laptops to shut off.

Microsoft has alleged that Sony has a practice of paying developers “blocking rights” to stop games from being launched on Xbox Game Pass.The statement has been filed in response to Sony’s recent comments on Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Speaking to a Brazilian regulatory body, Sony claimed  Microsoft acquiring Call Of Duty would make it challenging to rival; which would in turn have an effect on what console gamers chose to play their titles on.Now (via The Verge), Microsoft has argued that Sony is still large enough to rival the company, and claims ongoing business practices show Sony is actively doing so.“Microsoft’s ability to continue expanding Game Pass has been hampered by Sony’s desire to inhibit such growth,” claimed the company, explaining that “Sony pays for ‘blocking rights’ to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services.”Microsoft went on to say that Sony’s concerns over the acquisition are “incoherent,” and says it reveals “a fear about an innovative business model that offers high-quality content at low costs to gamers.”How Microsoft’s ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard will affect the games industry has been under scrutiny since it was announced.

Microsoft has announced a new wave of games coming to the Xbox Game Pass service over the next couple of weeks.As always, games both enter and leave Game Pass every month. These are the games that will be coming to Xbox Game Pass at the beginning of August:Ghost Recon: Wildlands, the open-world third-person shooter co-developed by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Milan, will be available on Xbox Game pass today.

The study, which was conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute and reported on by BBC News, examined 39,000 game players, with wellbeing measured “by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.” It was also noted that the average person would have to play for “10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference” in their wellbeing.The study included six weeks of data from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and used Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Apex Legends, Eve Online, Forza Horizon 4, Gran Turismo Sport, and The Crew 2 to find the results.Professor Andrew Przybylski stated that people with more free time to play video games were probably happier, but he continued to say that “how much you play doesn’t really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in wellbeing. If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better.”This contradicts the study from 2020, which sampled a much smaller pool of 3,274 gamers, and concluded that video games were good for a person’s wellbeing.

Xbox creator and Jurassic Park: Trespasser designer Seamus Blackley has outlined how a game pitch to director Stephen Spielberg eventually morphed into the Jurassic World movies.Blackley mentioned the story in brief on his Twitter last week (July 23), writing: “I wrote a story and design, and made a trailer. The management at Universal changed, and the project became a film.”In the ‘90s, Blackley worked at DreamWorks on locomotion physics, and the only way the company would fund a game that used them was if it was a Jurassic Park title.

Xbox Games with Gold service will no longer be offering Xbox 360 games starting in October.Games with Gold is a service available to subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It’s essentially a few freely downloadable games that Microsoft chooses every month.

Microsoft has announced a new program designed to bring demos to Xbox Game Pass, and it’s called Project Moorcroft.The early game demos intended for the Project Moorcroft initiative are meant to replicate the demos played during gaming conferences such as E3 or PAX.“We were sitting around as a team thinking, you remember it used to be you go to E3, you go to PAX, and you would go visit some of your favourite creators and they would have a piece or a level of a game that you could sit there and play, and there would be someone from the studio like right next to you in your ear being like: ‘press that button, go under there, do that stuff,'” said Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of game creator experience and ecosystem at Microsoft Gaming, speaking to press.“And you would get to experience the game, and they would get to generate excitement about what they’re building and what’s coming next.“So we said you know what?” Bond explained, “Why don’t we take Game Pass and make it like the show floor? Why don’t we make it possible for a developer to take a piece, a level of their game, release it into Game Pass, generate excitement for what’s coming, and also get that really valuable feedback as they are tuning and preparing their game for launch?”Bond also added that Microsoft set up the program to not just benefit the player, but it benefits the developers as well by giving them financial compensation for the game. It will also allow developers to receive feedback as well.Project Moorcroft is set to release within the next year and will begin by focusing on indie games.

Xbox consoles has changed secret achievements, and it’s quite a handy change for any hunters out there.Xbox users can now view secret achievements natively, as announced via an Xbox Wire post. On how to access the information, the post reads: “From within a game, open the guide and go to Game activity > Achievements.

Gears Of War franchise could be getting a remastered collection in the near future.That’s according to Xbox Era journalist Nick Baker, who said on the Xbox Era podcast on May 14 that a “Master Chief Collection-type treatment” is in the works for the Gears Of War series (via VGC).“A while back I said there is another Microsoft franchise that’s getting the Master Chief Collection-type treatment, I am of the belief that that is coming this year,” said Baker on the podcast, adding “everyone has guessed it.”Last year, The Coalition, the main studio behind the Gears Of War franchise, had reportedly started work on an original game series, targeted for the Xbox Series X|S using Unreal Engine 5.However, VGC reports that the studio is rather in the early stages of developing the next Gears Of War title.The collection could be revealed at the Xbox and Bethesda showcase due next month, where there may also be the first gameplay footage of Starfield, although it was delayed last week.The Coalition’s last game, Gears 5, was released on Xbox One and PC in 2019.The original Gears Of War was released back in 2006 for the Xbox 360 and received critical acclaim. It was then remastered as Gears Of War: Ultimate Edition for PC and Xbox One in 2015.However, the subsequent sequels: Gears Of War 2 and Gears Of War 3, never received the same treatment and are only available through modern Xbox consoles via backwards compatibility.

Certain Affinity has highlighted Xbox development experience in a job listing, after it was reported the studio is working on an exclusive for the console.The job requirement was spotted by Klobrille on Twitter (thanks, VGC), who shared the Certain Affinity job listing for a senior graphics engineer. Under the requirements, it’s stated that whoever fills the role must have “development experience on Xbox consoles,” as the studio also says it is “working on our own new original IP.”This follows a report from earlier in the year that claimed Certain Affinity was working on a Monster Hunter-inspired Xbox-exclusive title.

Sea of Thieves will see the addition of a new quest called Legend of the Veil, which brings in randomised story elements.First mentioned in Sea of Thieves’ roadmap from January, Legend of the Veil is a new three chapter long quest that will be available from April 21, and has now been detailed in both a blog post and a new video. The quest will be available for pirate legends, though in the deep dive where the quest is detailed, Rare staff did note that anyone can take part in the quest as long as a pirate legend is leading the voyage.In the new Sea of Thieves quest, players will be assisting the Pirate Lord, where you will have to gather special veil stones to further the plot.Legend of the Veil’s first two chapters are designed to be randomised, with some quests more puzzle oriented, and others featuring more combat.

Microsoft is apparently working on a group family pass for Xbox Game Pass, as the subscription service currently only offers individual memberships.As outlined in a Windows Central article from yesterday (March 31), trusted sources have said that a family plan – where one account can pay more to share Xbox Game Pass across a household’s accounts – is in the works and set to release sometime this year.The higher payment tier will apparently grant access to Xbox Game Pass for five different players, and be “far cheaper” than paying for each Xbox Game Pass account separately. Currently, Xbox Game Pass retails at £7.99 a month for console and PC, or £10.99 for Game Pass Ultimate, which includes game streaming and extra perks.This means that at present a regular subscription would cost five players £39.95, or Ultimate subscribers £54.95 a month.

Xbox has announced that it has paid indie developers billions in royalties from its ID@Xbox program.Independent Developers @ Xbox (ID@Xbox) is a scheme that Microsoft started in 2014 that allows indie studios to self-publish their games on the Xbox ecosystem of platforms.The announcement of shared royalties comes from Chris Charla, who was director of ID@Xbox until 2018 and is now a partner of content creation and programs at the company.“Since the program’s inception, independent developers have earned more than $2.5 billion [£1.89 billion] in royalties, and total revenue generated by ID@Xbox partners on Xbox almost doubled over the last three years. These are staggering numbers, and it speaks to the power of independent developers,” wrote Charla in a post on Xbox Wire.Charla adds that because of the scheme, indie developers have been able to give Microsoft direct feedback regarding its back-end publishing, which has allowed developers to more easily ship their games on both console and PC.“We’ve also paid developers and publishers across Xbox hundreds of millions of dollars in Game Pass license fees,” adds Charla, although no specific figure was given here.Despite apparently having over 3,000 indie games on Xbox, Charla notes that one area the team needs to improve on is discoverability and making it easier for players to find games they may end up really enjoying.Earlier in the month an ID@Xbox showcase was also live-streamed and showed off plenty of games coming to Game Pass in the near future.

The Initiative, the studio working on a reboot of Perfect Dark, is facing significantly high turnover and issues with slow progress.As reported by VGC, as many as half of Perfect Dark‘s core development team have quit The Initiative over the last year.VGC reports that this includes “most” of The Initiative’s senior design team. Last week, it was discovered that Dan Neuburger – game director at The Initiative – was one of the senior members that left.Departures include two senior system designers, a lead level designer, two senior writers, a design director, and more.The report claims that from speaking to several senior developers, “a lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress” were attributed to this departure.

Shredders, the snowboarding game from studios I-Illusions and Let It Roll, is launching on PC and Xbox Series X|S on March 17.Yesterday (March 2), publisher FoamPunch announced the release date with a brand new Shredders trailer while reaffirming that it will also be releasing day one on Xbox Game Pass.The trailer shows off newly captured gameplay of snowboarders in action, riding snow trails and pulling off unique tricks – similar to that of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. You can check out the short trailer below:Shredders was announced back in June 2021 as “a love letter to snowboarding” and takes inspiration from snowboarding films, as well as the Amped games that were released on Xbox and Xbox 360.As the game synopsis reads, “You and your pal are making goofball snowboarding videos at the Frozen Wood resort when brand ambassador Lisa makes an offer for a couple of sponsored videos.